Support our blog for free

Herb on Facebook

Contact Us:

Category: Working

We are wrapping up our Workamping experience at the Escapees RV Club park known as “Rainbow’s End.

This was the first park built in the system back in the late ’70’s. There were a handful of die-hard full-time RV’ers that donated their time and their talents to build this park.

This is also the home of the clubs National Headquarters and mail service that serves nearly 10,000 members and handles 25,000 pieces of mail daily.

We arrived October 15, 2017 and Kathy has been working in the office 8 hrs/week checking in new arrivals and taking reservations on the phone. I’ve been working 12 hrs/week outside maintaining the grounds and the buildings.

In exchange for the combined 20 hrs/week we receive a free full hook-up site and utilities. Laundry allowance is not provided.

Here’s a 6 minute video that I put together showing some of the amenities of the park and what the workampers get involved in during a typical week.

I’m also learning to use a new video editing software, so please bear with me and some of the features I’ve been experimenting with like; titles, transitions, voice-overs, fade-in and fade-out, and music.

Please remember to SUBSCRIBE to our You Tube channel by clicking on the icon in the lower right corner, and if you’d give the video a “thumbs up” too, that’d be wonderful.

Thanks for riding along with us and we look forward to the time we can meet up down the road.

Although we’re currently in Livingston, TX … we’re heading out Jan 14th for Florida for the month of February, then back to TX the last couple weeks of March, then (through Ohio) and up to Baldwin, Michigan for our summer workamping job, and in the fall of ’18 we’ll be in Albuquerque, NM working at the International Balloon Fiesta for a few weeks before we head to our winter home at Casa Grande, Arizona.

Here’s the video

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading...

We’d really appreciate it if you would do us the favor of helping us continue to publish this RV / Travel / Workamping blog. Do you purchase any products from Amazon? If you do, it would be great if you’d use the link in the sidebar or one of the links below to get to Amazon … after that you can change your search. By making your Amazon purchases from our site, we will receive from Amazon a small percentage of your purchase and it doesn’t cost you any more. We’d really appreciate your help.
Thank you,
Herb & Kathy

Summer’s over and our 4 month workamping gig has come to an end. We had a great experience at a wonderful park in a beautiful area of the country and I wanted to share a little info with you in hopes that you might have an opportunity to spend some time in this often “skipped” area of our country.

Pere Marquette Oaks RV Resort is located in west central Michigan just about 3 miles south of the town of Baldwin. “PMO” as it’s referred to by its friends is just about an hour north of Grand Rapids and less than 45 minutes from the Lake Michigan shore city of Ludington.

PMO is a condominium RV park where the “campers” actually own their lot and pay annual dues to the association for maintenance and amenities. Some of the owners who may be out of town in their RV actually rent out their lot to visitors to the area. The park has a full-time rental manager to handle these rentals and welcome visitors to the park and to the area. Sue can be reached at 616-901-4060.

All the lots at PMO are large (at least 50′ x 100′) and all are full hook-up sites with concrete paved and level sites that include free wifi and 36 channels of cable TV. There are just over 100 sites with asphalt paved streets lined with massive oak trees that offer lots of shade.

Other amenities include a modern clubhouse that offers a fully equipped kitchen, large flat screen TV and plenty of round tables and chairs so that folks can use the room for football parties, card games, or larger family gatherings.

The most popular amenities in the park are definitely the heated pool and hot tub. Lots of adults and children make good use of these amenities during hot weather. The picnic pavilion adjacent to the pool provides a great place for gathering and enjoying one of the many pot-luck meals that seem to pop up over the season.

Visitors to the park will find lots of opportunity to meet plenty of other like minded people as they walk or bicycle around the park. Typically the holiday long weekends (Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day) are the busiest and the most fun in the park. Although there is no “Activities Director”, folks at the park take it upon themselves to plan activities that attract everyone to attend and participate.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Overnight rate (for 2017) is only $45 per night and Sue (616-901-4060) will be happy to get you a spot for a night and she can give you all the details about seasonal rates and ownership opportunities as well.

I encourage you to take the opportunity to stay at PM (Pere Marquette) Oaks RV Resort. Not only are you less than an hour away from Lake Michigan and the beautiful Ludington State Park, but you’re only minutes away from Big Star Lake where you can canoe, kayak, or jet ski and you will be just a hop, skip, and a jump from the famous Pere Marquette River which is one of the premier Rainbow Trout and Steelhead streams in the Midwest. If you want something a little different, Lake County boasts 47 trout streams and 153 lakes, so there’s surely someplace right for you.

Kathy and I will be heading back to PMO in the spring of 2018 for another workamping season and who knows, … maybe we’ll see you there!

Wishing you smooth roads and sunny skies …

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading...

We’d really appreciate it if you would do us the favor of helping us continue to publish this RV / Travel / Workamping blog. Do you purchase any products from Amazon? If you do, it would be great if you’d use the link in the sidebar or one of the links below to get to Amazon … after that you can change your search. By making your Amazon purchases from our site, we will receive from Amazon a small percentage of your purchase and it doesn’t cost you any more. We’d really appreciate your help.
Thank you,
Herb & Kathy

We’re coming to the end of our first year as full-time RV’ers and Kathy and I have taken stock of the decision we made to leave the stix-n-bricks world of home ownership and hit the road as Workampers.

We left our family and friends back in Ohio on Labor Day 2016 and headed west to Arizona for our first Workamping experience. This position was for Sept 15th to March 15th, 2017. I’ve written many posts about our experiences while working in Arizona, you can find them elsewhere on this blog. Here’s a link to a post on our workamping experience there.

We had a great time and made some great new friendships there and we’d like to go back to Arizona again in the near future. If you’re contemplating visiting Arizona, we highly recommend the central portion of the state near cities like Cottonwood, Camp Verde, Clarkdale, Sedona, & Jerome.

Central Arizona – Not too hot in the summer, not too cold in the winter

These spots are far enough north of Phoenix to be a little cooler and less looking like desert, but in the winter you’re far enough south of cities like Flagstaff so the chances of snow are pretty slim.

This video below takes you on a bicycle tour of the park. It’s a beautiful lush green RV park full of towering oak trees, an in-ground heated pool, hot tub, picnic pavilion, laundry room, and club house.

We don’t have to park new arrivals, answer the phone, or take reservations. There is a rental manager for that. Kathy and I are responsible for maintaining the rest rooms, showers, pool, hot tub, club house and laundry areas.

Take the tour and find out a little more.

Although it’s only been a year, we’ve come to realize that we are really enjoying this lifestyle change. We have sold our home in Ohio (to our daughter and son-in-law), and will be registering as Texas residents this winter when we are there for our next (winter) workamping position. Texas is viewed by “those in the know” as one of the 3 best states to domicile in for full-time RV’ers.

We hope to continue this lifestyle as long as our health allows and recommend to anyone considering some sort of lifestyle change to think about hitting the road in an RV and workamping along the way, both to help keep active and contribute to the household budget. We look for employers/positions that ask for about 10-20 hours per week in exchange for a full hook-up site along with water, sewer, electric, cable, wifi, and laundry allowance. We don’t want to work 40 hours+, we’ve been there / done that.

Thanks for reading … don’t be afraid to ask questions …we’d love to hear from you.

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading...

We’d really appreciate it if you would do us the favor of helping us continue to publish this RV / Travel / Workamping blog. Do you purchase any products from Amazon? If you do, it would be great if you’d use the link in the sidebar or one of the links below to get to Amazon … after that you can change your search. By making your Amazon purchases from our site, we will receive from Amazon a small percentage of your purchase and it doesn’t cost you any more. We’d really appreciate your help.
Thank you,
Herb & Kathy

It’s been a few days since I’ve written … we’ve been keeping busy here at the park. Our new workamper partners, Russ & Mary arrived on Sunday the 14th and our first official day of work was the 15th. The first few days of that week we all worked together to get the place “open” for the season.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Pere Marquette Oaks RV Park is a beautiful park. There are about 115 RV sites here. All the lots are individually owned and each property owner is responsible for all the upkeep of their lot with the exception of the grass mowing and trimming which is paid for by the association from the annual association fees. They hire the crew from the golf course across the street to take care of the turf and those guys come over every Tuesday morning to mow and trim and blow off all the edges.

This first full week the guys pressure washed all the concrete surfaces around the pool deck, the sidewalks, and the picnic pavilion. We used a pretty slick tool that I wasn’t familiar with called a “PowerFit Surface Cleaner“. This attaches to the gas powered pressure washer and helps to easily clean the concrete surfaces.

The ladies did the initial “deep cleaning” of the bathrooms to make them spic ‘n span for the season. We brought out all the tables, chairs, and umbrellas to arrange around the pool … washing everything down as we set them up. We installed the sand volleyball and badminton nets. We worked to stabilize the pool and hot tub chemicals so that the water would be clean, balanced, and safe for everyone to use this Memorial Day weekend.

Our site here at the park is close to the main entrance so Kathy and I get to see everyone as they come and go. Part of our responsibilities include “cruising” the park 3 or 4 times daily in the golf cart and just being aware of anything looking out of the ordinary on residents sites.

Although there are 15-20 folks that are here all summer, many of the sites are unoccupied during the week while their owners are downstate working and then they come “up north” on the weekend, so our weekends are often going to be “full house”, especially on holiday weekends like this Memorial Day weekend.

Kathy and I will be taking some day trips around northern Michigan and we’ll share some of that with you as time goes on. Thanks for stopping by and we’d love it if you’d leave a note with your thoughts …

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading...

We’d really appreciate it if you would do us the favor of helping us continue to publish this RV / Travel / Workamping blog. Do you purchase any products from Amazon? If you do, it would be great if you’d use the link in the sidebar or one of the links below to get to Amazon … after that you can change your search. By making your Amazon purchases from our site, we will receive from Amazon a small percentage of your purchase and it doesn’t cost you any more. We’d really appreciate your help.
Thank you,
Herb & Kathy

Since we’ve been here just a few days in the “up north” area of Michigan, we’ve been able to do a little exploring. We arrived at Pere Marquette Oaks RV Park on Sunday the 7th of May and our official work start date is not until the 15th.

Right after we arrived Sunday night, we noticed a leak in the kitchen sink area. First thing Monday, a trip to the local ACE Hardware in Baldwin. WOW! What a store.

Baldwin ACE Hardware

Large store with ample supply of what seemed to be anything anyone might need or want without the need to drive to Big Rapids or Ludington for one of the big box stores.

Just a small length of plastic pipe strap fixed the problem in a jiffy. The slip joint on the “p” trap had come loose from the jiggling as we travel down the road.

While we were in town we decided to check out some of the Pere Marquette River boat launch sites AND OF COURSE one of the local restaurants for a late morning breakfast.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

After breakfast we walked across the street to see the famous JONES Ice Cream Shop. They have been making their private recipe ice cream in the back room for 75 years. The parlor’s walls are lined with hundreds of black and white photos showing Lake County history from the mid 1800’s forward. Take a look at the photos below and see the old time ice cream parlor chairs and stools at the counter.

Jones Ice Cream Parlor

After breakfast we decided we wanted to look around town a bit check out the river that this area is so famous for. I’ve put together a video (below) showing some of the different walk-in sites and boat launch sites to the river and some of the lakes in the nearby area.

So far, we are impressed by the beauty of the water and the quiet that abounds. It’s so peaceful and calming. Our next post will be a little about the park we’re living at for the summer. Stay tuned for more.

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading...

We’d really appreciate it if you would do us the favor of helping us continue to publish this RV / Travel / Workamping blog. Do you purchase any products from Amazon? If you do, it would be great if you’d use the link in the sidebar or one of the links below to get to Amazon … after that you can change your search. By making your Amazon purchases from our site, we will receive from Amazon a small percentage of your purchase and it doesn’t cost you any more. We’d really appreciate your help.
Thank you,
Herb & Kathy

This park was our first workamping experience and we came here full of excitement but also a little anxiety not really knowing what to expect.

We’ve been blessed. We were very quickly accepted as part of the “family” here at the park. The owners and managers have been wonderful to work for and we’ve really enjoyed getting to know everyone here.

Some are full-time residents, while we’ve had a fair amount of those that come and go every few days. We’ve tried to make a point of meeting as many as we can because in life, it’s the people that make the difference.

So now it’s on to Florida to visit friends and family, then back up to Ohio by the 1st of April where we’ll spend a few weeks with the kids and grandkids, and then up to Michigan in May where we’ll be workamping for the summer near Ludington.

I’ll try to post more as we travel east and north, but it’s often more difficult because of some limited wifi and less time to sit at the keyboard – more driving and sightseeing stops.

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading...

We’d really appreciate it if you would do us the favor of helping us continue to publish this RV / Travel / Workamping blog. Do you purchase any products from Amazon? If you do, it would be great if you’d use the link in the sidebar or one of the links below to get to Amazon … after that you can change your search. By making your Amazon purchases from our site, we will receive from Amazon a small percentage of your purchase and it doesn’t cost you any more. We’d really appreciate your help.
Thank you,
Herb & Kathy

Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us for the next 2-3 weeks. This park is a nice size, only 40 spaces with green grass and TREES in between each site. This makes it a real attractive place to stay and live for a while.

Kathy and I are here for six months, workamping 2 days/week in exchange for our site and utilities.

Normally, the workload is pretty light; cutting some grass, helping new arrivals getting parked in their site, delivering mail to the long-term renters, minor repairs of water lines or electrical pedestals, and cleaning of the laundry and bathrooms.

However, yesterday morning after a below freezing night and when the sun came up and hit the trees, it seemed like it was snowing leaves! It was really kind of funny to watch them all come down all over the park at once.

We’ll use leaf blowers and rakes to get the leaves into piles, then we vacuum them up with the leaf vacuum and dump them down below in our HUGE compost pile. Check out the videos below to see what workampers do in the fall at Rancho Verde RV Park in Camp Verde, Arizona.

This 2nd short video shows how we vacuum and then dump the leaves into the compost pile down below. We’ve been doing this 6-8 times each day ’cause that wagon gets filled up pretty quick!

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading...

We’d really appreciate it if you would do us the favor of helping us continue to publish this RV / Travel / Workamping blog. Do you purchase any products from Amazon? If you do, it would be great if you’d use the link in the sidebar or one of the links below to get to Amazon … after that you can change your search. By making your Amazon purchases from our site, we will receive from Amazon a small percentage of your purchase and it doesn’t cost you any more. We’d really appreciate your help.
Thank you,
Herb & Kathy

NOTE: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.